January 10, 2008 in City

Wake up and read the news to come in 2008

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You know why the newspaper industry is shriveling like roadkill, my friends?

It’s because everybody beats us.

The Internet beats us. Radio beats us. Television beats us. Teenage, text-messaging brats beat us.

Smoke signals beat us.

Licking a stamp and mailing the news to Guam beats us.

You get the picture.

The problem is that we waste so much time trying to cover current events, such as City Hall meetings and studies that may or may not show the health risks of caffeine.

There’s only one way to save the print industry. We need to start reporting the News of the Future.

Ever the print pioneer, I will now lead the way by giving you a month-by-month list of the big stories that will be breaking in 2008.

January: Mad magazine replaces long-standing idiot mascot Alfred E. Neuman with Larry Craig after the Idaho senator’s toilet scandal is featured on the magazine’s cover.

“What, me Larry?” responds Craig when reached for comment.

February: Broadcasting from a secret underground bunker, Mark Fuhrman and Rebecca Mack return to Spokane radio on a pirate signal that jams KGA, the station that canned them.

“Nobody silences my loud MOUTH!!!” notes Fuhrman in his opening rant.

March: Career thief Eddie Ray Hall is released from prison and given a management job by Avista Corp.

“A man with Mr. Hall’s talent for larceny is always appreciated by a power company,” an Avista spokesman says.

April: The Spokane Police Department retires its Tasers and vows to only use Mace when dealing with unruly citizens.

A lieutenant later clarifies they meant “those heavy spiked medieval head-bashing weapons,” and not the relatively harmless pepper spray.

May: North Idaho tycoon Duane Hagadone asks state officials for permission to build a “teleport” outside his Casco Bay home on Lake Coeur d’Alene.

“I know last year we wanted to build a helicopter pad,” says Hagadone during a public hearing.

“But our research shows that beaming my molecules instantaneously to and from the lake place and Coeur d’Alene would enhance my reputation as a Big Swinging Deal by 300 percent.”

June: Struck by lightning while teeing off on the 14th hole at Hangman, Spokane County Prosecutor Steve Tucker rushes back to his office and files charges in the Otto Zehm death.

“I can’t explain it,” Tucker says. “But for some reason I see things so clearly now.”

July: Scruffy, deodorant-impaired anarchists again invade Spokane’s Riverfront Park on the Fourth of July.

This time the group heads to the Clocktower, where they hand out flag lapel pins and lead picnickers in a spirited Pledge of Allegiance.

“We’re not anarchists anymore,” says one of the members. “Now we’re Americhists.”

August: Spokane Valley finally locates a civic center only to misplace it moments later.

“Where’d it go?” grouses a Valley city official. “Damn. It was here just a second ago.”

September: Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire declares Division Street as Spokane’s official North-South freeway.

“Let’s stop kidding ourselves,” states the governor. “We’re never gonna build that thing.”

October: A Valley business is the latest to purchase naming rights to Spokane’s downtown performing arts center.

“Welcome to the Spokane Opera House of Hose,” announces Harry Sladich, Spokane Regional Convention and Visitors Bureau president.

“Hey, it could be worse,” he adds. “The DéjÀ Vu strip joint had the runner-up bid.”

November: The presidential election is held. The clear winner is the word “change,” having been uttered by candidates 6 trillion times.

December: Overcome with appreciation, Spokesman-Review Editor Steven A. Smith awards me with a 200 percent raise, an office with a view and a new Mercedes.

And pigs fly. And hell freezes over. And the Iraq war ends. And …

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